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Don't link or I'll sue!
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August 12, 1999 |
In 1999 this is almost too obvious to restate in intelligent company, right? That isn't stopping a still small but growing list of companies from contending that certain kinds of links are actually illegal. Go ahead and link to our sites, they're saying, but only if you link the way we tell you to. Otherwise, you'll hear from our lawyers. Ticketmaster started all this back in 1997. Miffed after Microsoft's Sidewalk sites started linking directly to its ticket sales pages rather than to its home page or "front door," the ticketing giant -- which had a deal with Sidewalk competitor CitySearch -- sued Microsoft. (The companies settled in February.) Since then, Ticketmaster merged its online operations with CitySearch, and that company swallowed up Microsoft's city guide. This new, engorged Ticketmaster is now at it again: It has sued Tickets.com, complaining that the rival firm is bypassing its home page and linking directly to "inside" pages. (The suit also alleges that Tickets.com stole Ticketmaster content and provided inaccurate information on the availability of Ticketmaster tickets.) Scott Rosenberg's column appears once a week in Technology In a similar case, Universal Studios recently sent its lawyers after the proprietor of a site called Movie-List, which compiles links to online movie trailers, demanding that he stop linking to the movie previews the studio posts on its own sites. The operator of the site put up a page compiling his correspondence with Universal's lawyers and his own Internet service provider -- which, among other things, complained to him that he was not a "registered search engine," whatever that is. The practice that bugs Ticketmaster and Universal has become known -- in what sounds like some sort of homage to both Watergate and the porn industry -- as "deep linking." That term carries some sinister overtones, but in truth "deep linking" comes naturally on the Web: I've already done it several times in this story, linking "deep" into other sites' content and file structure. That serves you, the reader, a lot better than telling you to go to Wired News or the New York Times' home pages and search for "Ticketmaster AND lawsuits" to find the articles I'm referring to. I did that work for you already; you just have to follow my "deep link." Ticketmaster argues that since it sells ads on its home page, "deep links" hurt its business by bypassing those ads -- so it maintains that if you want to "deep link" to its site, you have to negotiate a deal with it first. According to Ticketmaster, I guess, this link is illegal: If I want to send you to where you can buy tickets to a Tom Petty concert next weekend, I'd better do it Ticketmaster's way, or not at all.
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